Jessie knew she was late for the family reunion, probably too late for the big picnic lunch at forest lake beach, but too early for the barbecue dinner. "too bad" she thought, because she had skipped breakfast as well, trying to get out of the city and on the road to the lake. perhaps there would be some leftovers; she hoped so, because she was beginning to get that slightly dizzy feeling that meant she was pushing her limits. no leftovers, but the whole extended family was there: sitting and talking on the beach, playing frisbee golf, and throwing a football. some of the younger cousins were having swimming contests out to the floating platform at the edge of the swimming area. jessie watched the kids swimming, and smiled sadly. she had been a competitive swimmer as a teenager and still missed it. as she watched the group of splashing children, jessie began to think that something wasn’t right about a little boy off to the right of all the others. she put her hand up to shade her eyes from the sun and squinted; the kid was in trouble! he was throwing his arms around randomly, and thrashing the water into froth. none of the other children were close enough to notice, and there didn’t seem to be any other adults near enough to raise the alarm. without any further thought, jessie ran into the lake. after the first few lunges through the water, dove shallowly and began swimming towards the now sinking child. her muscle memory kicked in and her strokes became fast, efficient, and powerful. with each stroke she raised her head enough to keep the small head in sight; she was making progress, but he was going down! she pushed harder, picked up speed, and then she saw him, underwater, sinking quickly despite his frenzied paddling. jessie took a breath and dove; she grabbed the little guy’s surfer swim shorts, and kicked hard back toward the surface. she began the one-sided stroke that allowed her to keep his head above the water, and swam toward the beach, which seemed, strangely, to be disappearing into a haze. jessie felt exhausted, but kept swimming, breathing in short gasps.